Metting My Maker

This is one of my earliest memories as a child... two and a half feet tall, all head and barley a body holding it up. Staring down at my Mack truck set and my Hot Wheels car, the sunlight fighting through the blinds giving my Mack truck that cool sheen off the red gloss paint, with the rear end of the yellow Hot Wheels Lamborghini poking out from underneath the chrome trimmed trailer. I can't really remember why the Lambo was there but I do remember how cool it was that it could fit underneath it. I am about two years old at the time and don't have a single memory of what happened ten minutes before seeing my toys but the next 20 minutes, I've been told, will be etched in my neurons till the day I die.

The memory begins with my uncle babysitting me while my aunt was at the grocery store. We're living in a trailer park somewhere in the state of Iowa. This had to have been the ugliest trailer I have ever seen to date. It had pink, white and chocolate colored panels scattered all over its exterior with its sorry excuse for a yard fenced in with a cheap mock, thin plastic picket. It must have been winter because I wasn't outside and it was around the evening. I was on the floor crashing my Mack into the Lambo, which for some reason always survived and still managed to speed away. My uncle is watching some comedy show, I think, sprawled out on the couch in a "T" and his underwear.

In the midst of my predictable automotive carnage, my uncle had slipped off to the restroom or something, I didn't care what he did my toys were in front of me. My uncle had been gone for quite some time, five minutes is forever to a kid. I recall starting to get bored and wondering where my uncle had been. I called for him, "Tio...?" no response. As soon as I stood up I had noticed that the blinds were completely closed and then the television had shut off. I didn't turn the dial to turn it off. The only light in the living room was from the setting Sun, a deep orange struggling to get through the blinds. My tiny two year old heart is picking up the pace. "Tio?" I cry out, still no response. There's a ringing in my ears that is gradually getting louder with a pounding in my ears, I am wondering where those noises are coming from. I am pretty sure that this is my first panic attack. My breathing is becoming erratic, a tear falls from my eye, "Tio!" still no response.

In a ghostly voice I hear my (nick) name, "Capuyo...." Followed with scratches on the wall, I shriek. I don't know where the voice is coming from. I am scanning the room, my heart beat is pounding at my ears, sobbing as quietly as I can. The wall gets scratched again and I can't tell from where it is coming the pounding in my ears is starting to disorient me. I cry out again as loud as my little voice can for my uncle and still no response. Scared beyond all reason I had at the time, I am